Mistake 15 makes me think of a quote that always struck me from Machiavelli's Prince:
"Since men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been travelled by the great, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour. This is like the skillful archer, who seeing that the object he would hit is distant, and knowing the range of his bow, takes aim much above the destined mark; not intending that his arrow should strike so high, but, in flying high, it may land at the point intended."
I tend to think aiming higher has a better chance of hitting a decent mark. So where he says to know your aim but also know your limit, perhaps you should still aim at $10 million if you're trying to hit $5 mil. Not saying everyone's goal should be to overtake Google or MS, but just aiming at your exact target means you're likelier to fall short.
The flip-side I guess is that you need to recognize what success is for you personally, and reaching your lofty goals 100% maybe shouldn't be a requirement of that, since if you're aiming at $10 mil, $5 mil is still quite successful by most peoples' standards :)
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Mistake 15 makes me think of a quote that always struck me from Machiavelli's Prince:
"Since men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been travelled by the great, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour. This is like the skillful archer, who seeing that the object he would hit is distant, and knowing the range of his bow, takes aim much above the destined mark; not intending that his arrow should strike so high, but, in flying high, it may land at the point intended."
I tend to think aiming higher has a better chance of hitting a decent mark. So where he says to know your aim but also know your limit, perhaps you should still aim at $10 million if you're trying to hit $5 mil. Not saying everyone's goal should be to overtake Google or MS, but just aiming at your exact target means you're likelier to fall short.
The flip-side I guess is that you need to recognize what success is for you personally, and reaching your lofty goals 100% maybe shouldn't be a requirement of that, since if you're aiming at $10 mil, $5 mil is still quite successful by most peoples' standards :)